Is there a ‘Xiu Xiu scene'? You know, Xiu Xiu, Parenthetical Girls, The Dead Science... all distinct, yeh, but all still on some level cut from the same basic template- mewling feminised vocals, sense of high drama and trauma, atonal, often counter-intuitive arrangements... you know what I mean. But in the same way that Parenthetical Girls have a sumptuous, sickly, almost *poppy* allure that Xiu Xiu probably won't ever have, so The Dead Science are the totally killer rock band that Xiu Xiu can never hope to be (and, in this case, I suspect they might even *want* to be, or at least that's what they seemed to aspire to live).Basically, I guess what I'm saying is that if there is a ‘Xiu Xiu scene', then this is almost certainly the year they get overtaken on all fronts by their ideological cousins. I mean, ‘Woman As Lovers' was good but it was nothing like as consistently dark and epic and *focused* as Villainaire here, and obv ‘Safe As Houses' beats all anyway, except possibly the forthcoming ‘Entanglements' which if ‘A Song For Ellie Greenwich' is anything to go by should be the best record ever ever. But this isn't a Parenthetical Girls review... (despite whatever shared members, naturally)So anyway yeh like I said Villainaire is a pretty big album. ‘Monster Island Czars' is pretty much where avant-rock and Stravinsky meet and start to beat each other up a bit as someone howls about the end of the world in the background. (PS: please don't call me out on that Stravinsky reference if its hideously accurate, I actually know dick all about classical music) Opener ‘Throne Of Blood (The Jump Off)' sounds like Xiu Xiu trapped inside the Doom soundtrack or something. Well, after the harp bit at the very start. ‘Make Mine Marvel' recalls nothing so much as a man screaming at the edge of a cliff in a storm. The record is consistently, light-absorbingly dark (gold-on-black cover art so dizzyingly appropriate), the band themselves a tight core in the middle of a cast of some 12 guest musicians.The arrangements are really quite fantastic actually. Occassionally something really alarming good will happen like the ‘dododododo' weird... something (saxophone?) sound in ‘Holliston' or how ‘Black Lane' starts so pleasantly and flowingly with all the harps and jazzy drumming and then how Sam Mickens almost ends up sounding like Morrissey on it at times ("dililililling)". Or just the mere fact the album is "dedicated in word and deed to the Wu-Tang Clan." That's interesting actually... I mean its hard to really see the *direct* influence of the Wus here but I guess its just as light-absorbing as ‘Liquid Swords'.But, you know, I've given it nothing but praise thus far and still my score's only 80%. This is because the score actually reflects how much I actively *enjoy* listening to the album which is quite a lot but not as much as I am impressed by it. Oh and it ends a bit abruptly too. So yeah. It's a really good art-rock record anyway. 80%TheDead Science on MySpace